September 2010

September 30, 2010

The day started with One Life to Live, and the day ends with two stars of the show in a cabaret act at the Triad on Saturday October 9th at 9:30. Bingo guest Ilene Kristin and former OLTL co-star Kathy Brier will be making you glad you stayed in town for the Columbus Day weekend holiday (Columbus Day is Monday October 11th - which also just happens to be National Coming Out Day... come out, you might save a kids life). Tickets are $35 and $25 although you can use code FANDF when ordering to get a discount. Brace yourself kids, because I've seen Ilene's solo show, and I can only imagine that with Ms. Brier there, it'll just be twice as fun! You can click here to Kathy's website to order .. I wish I could go but I found out about it after we'd already gotten tickets to another show that night! Life in Manhattan - you always wish you could be in two places at once (and sometimes more than that!). Show plays at the Triad Theatre (158 W. 72nd Street)

Today marks the 50th anniversary of THE FLINTSTONES and to celebrate, Google is using this as their home page pic. These people rock. Don't you just want to work at Google just so you can be around their awesomeness?

Am I being a total geek if I wish there was a page that collected all their special logos? Oh wait, someone at Google already thought of it (which proves that there are other people just like me in the universe!)

Well, fans of ONE LIFE TO LIVE can relax, the show's producers have had their contract renewed for two years which means that the show (which is owned by ABC and doesn't need to get 'renewed' like other shows) will be on til at least 2012. This is a good thing for fans of the show although most recently the show has been a flatlining bore with dead end stories and (even for soaps) improbable situations.

Here's a few things that the show can do to bring back viewers:

1. Stop shoving the Fords down our throat. The three actors that comprise this buff brood aren't all that bad, but given that two of the three (James and Robert) have broken up fan fave relationships, it's not exactly endearing them to fans. Plus their mother, Inez is incredibly mis-cast - she's too young to be the mother of this brood and she's just kind of a blah character. Re-cast or be gone! Unfortunately as the show has just cast John Wesley-Shipp as the Ford's jailbird/car stealing/abusive dad, it doesnt look as though this family is leaving the canvas any time soon (although, unfortunately for Wesley-Shipp, OLTL villians don't stay around too long especially ones that have been reviled this much in advance). Naturally this storyline is meant to make the brothers more sympathetic (when a character is bad, just bring in someone worse. It's worked on GENERAL HOSPITAL for a decade) but I feel that at least by the internet chat, fans will be hoping the Ford daddy does away with his family. That's not saying much about the success of these characters does it?

2. Bring back the supporting characters that make Llanview interesting. For example, where is Roxy? She got ten minutes the other day and I felt as though I'd been in the desert without water. Ten minutes of Roxy absolves the show of a lotta sins but ten minutes every other month isn't enough. Bringing back some of the Purged charactes (Kish, Schuyler, Addie, Kim, Delphina, Rachel, Moe, Noell, the Evans parents for example) would be a big step in feeling that there aren't only twenty people living in this thriving city. I'm not saying that any of them have to be on every day. Here and there would be a great idea. One of the best elements of the past couple years is the unpredictability of who was going to show up when. It made me want to you know, watch the show every day.. which is kind of the point isn't it?

3. Stop with the Eli story. Just stop. It's over-convoluted and has not been able to wreck actor Matt Walton's innate likeability.. so say it was a brain tumor, say the murders attributed to him were the work of someone else and move on rehabbing the character. True, he can't get around having pushed Marty down the stairs, but you know, brain tumor..

4. Show, let the writers do their job. It's clear that there's some great talent behind the scenes and it's clear that they're not allowed to do the show they want to because the head of daytime has to have his finger in everything (despite having proved for nearly a decade that there's not a creative bone in his body). It's OK to be the money people and keep an eye on spending, but it's not OK to pretend that you know how to tell a story when you have a proven track record that you do not. Need I remind the network of a character called Stacy Morasco?

5. Bring back Roger Howath's Todd. Yes, there have been rumors that the actor is coming back ...but as who? The Real Todd? Todd's unknown twin? Eli with plastic surgery? These have all been floated as options on line .. I'm hoping for RealTodd (which would mean that CurrentTodd isn't really Todd at all and he's spent the past 8 years or so lying to everyone.. that would be good soap), but I'd settle for an unknown twin who comes to town and is horrified to learn of his brother's atrocities (also would be good soap). I think I will probably would hate it if it was Eli with a face lift (too FACE OFF for me) although I suppose at this point Im so deadened to anything the show does that I'd just go 'yeah, whatever' but I wouldn't have to like it.

6. Continue the Asa-ing of Clint but whatever it takes, bring Amanda Setton back as Kim. She was a tonic to the show and gave great story. Woo her. Give her outs to do whatever else she wants to do (like Tuc Watkins does) and make her the toughest wife that ever walked through Llanview. Payback can be a bitch and Kim (as played by Setton) would be embraced by fans. The "stripper/whore becoms a respectable lady" story arc is a soap staple, doesnt make it bad.

7. Less "events' and more 'moments'. An event is a car crash. A moment is a mother talking to her daughter. We need more moments and less events.

While the past year hasn't been very good (Kish was the one bright spot and proved that the team could tell a good story) I have some hope that with the team knowing they have at least two more years, they will be able to bring the show back to it's former glory... or am I just hoping for too much given the state of the show and the genre in general?

September 29, 2010

Hey all, as part of my ongoing job as blogger, it behooves me to keep the site free of debris... so on Friday October 1st I'll be removing both galleries from the Bad Boys on the Hudson including photographer Gustavo Monroy's awesome photo gallery. A bunch of the Bingo nights from spring and summer will also disapeer and naturally yes, I've got like three or four weeks of pics to post for your enjoyment.

No date set yet for a 2011 Bad Boys but I have been asked to do one and I'll have a date for it sometime in the new year. - Will

That's at 8pm at Pieces located at 8 Christopher Street (between Gay and Greenwich near 6th Ave.)

About Queens Pride House

Queens Pride House is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization whose mission is to serve the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities in Queens in their full diversity. Pride House accomplishes its mission by providing a health information and referral hotline and drop-in center, support groups, monthly social and cultural events, educational workshops, access to legal services, and community health & organizing campaigns.

There was no last minute save, there is no one saying they were sorry and no official proclamation from the town's Mayor saying that this kind of thing shouldn't happen here. Perhaps they'll get around it to it if a few hundred thousand gays and lesbians show up and start making out with each other and making fun of straight people. I dont know really what that would do but in my juvenile mind (it always goes there at times like these) it feels better to fight fire with fire. I'd like to think that there's a TO WONG FOO ending to this story where the people of the town realize that they've contributed to the aura of hatred that compelled this child to take his own life and are suddenly of a glad heart (you know, the kind of heart that God - you remember Him, right?- directs us to have) and filled with goodwill towards men..., but I know that's not how life works. As one commentator on the Queerty site says, there probably are a few people in that Texas town relieved that the town queer is gone.

For me, elementary school was the worst for all this as I was getting beat up and humiliated daily at home by my older brother and taunted daily at school (and sometimes even in my church Sunday school class!). By junior high my brother had moved out of the house after a blowup with my folks (and if you are sensing that he's 'not right' you win the jackpot) and I had developed an interest in theatre, band and choir. I suppose that the taunts of 'fag' weren't that far off the mark, but of course you don't really know that at 12.

My folks did what they could to help me out but mostly I had to learn to be super independant and figure out how to take care of myself.

Eventually I figured out a couple coping mechanisms -

One, that if I could make people laugh through self deprecating remarks, they would just leave me alone. As with these kinds of things, it started off as self defense and ended up being a belief system. It's taken awhile to dismantle that. Still working on it by the way.

The other was that the best place to 'hide" was in plain sight.. meaning that by being on stage, no one could do anything to me as it would draw too much attention to them. I don't think I consciously thought this as I had a natural affinity for performing, but later, I realized it was a fortunate by product. And when you are making people laugh by being wild and crazy on stage, they tend not to take you all that seriously and see you as less of a threat (and see the first coping mechanism for how that worked out).

At 16 I did try to switch schools but my parents wouldn't have it and soon after my father was diagnosed with cancer and I knew I couldn't press the issue.

But as soon as I was old enough to get away to go to college, well, I couldn't wait to get the hell out of there. Away from the bullies and blackhearted people that had made part of growing up so miserable. (It wasn't all bad and someday I'll tell you stories).

Unfortunately, I also ran away from the goodhearted people and the friends that I held dear, that had stuck with me through thick and thin. Fortunately I also ran towards college and what would turn out to be the start of lots of amazing adventures.

To my dear hometown friends - I'm so sorry I didn't know how to tell you that the pain of being there was unbearable for me. Your friendship kept me alive but it wasnt strong enough to overcome the tortures that I went through. I'm glad that I've reconnected with some of them on my personal Facebook page.

What I would say to kids like Ryan is: it does get better but you have to stick around to see how the story ends. Suicide is not the answer; it's not yourself you want to kill, it's your life. Let me say that again: SUICIDE IS NOT THE ANSWER; IT'S NOT YOURSELF YOU WANT TO KILL, IT'S YOUR LIFE.

It's too late for Ryan but it's not too late for the thousands of LGBT kids out there RIGHT NOW that are being harrassed and tortured because they're coming out earlier and earlier - and despite a dramatic shift in attitudes from when I grew up, it's still a jungle out there. An anti gay jungle at that.

What can YOU do to get the message out?

Author Dan Savage has an idea and I'm sure you've heard of it. It Gets Better... and here's the video:

Hey all, many apologies for being so lax about doing updates... have been working my ass off editing a resource guide for a theatre organization the past couple weeks and got hired to do some landscaping up near Hudson.. so I've had to kind of let the blog go for a bit.. .but during the latter half of this week I should be able to catch up with photos from some recent Bingo nights, some news and pics and the usual promotional stuff.

If you're in NYC, stop in Wednesday night for this week's edition of "P*rno Bingo", "(Mostly) Queer Music Night" to benefit Queens Pride House. More on that as we inch closer to the event.

Meanwhile, a big thanks to photographer Gustavo Monroy who took this really awesome pic last week ...we've been trying to meet up for a couple months and we finally made it happen. :)